bedelaar 2

There is no condition of life... 

which the grace of God has not sanctified. 

Enkele bittere sinaasappelschillen

This is the first reflection that must rise in the mind of anyone who studies the history of Benedict Joseph Labre. He died a beggar in Rome in 1783. Within a year of his death, his reputation for sanctity had spread, it would seem, throughout Europe. 

The man and his reputed miracles were being discussed in London papers before the end of 1784. During that year, the first authentic life of him appeared, from the pen of his confessor. It was written, as the author expressly states in the preface, because so many tales were being told about him. 

In 1785 an abridged translation was published in London. Surely a remarkable witness, when we consider the place and the times—it was only five years after the Gordon riots—to the interest his name had aroused. 

We wonder in our own day at the rapidity with which the name of St. Therese of Lisieux has spread over the Christian world. Though St. Benedict's actual canonization has taken a longer time, nevertheless his cultus spread more quickly, and that in spite of the revolutionary troubles of those days, and the difficulties of communication. 

Rousseau and Voltaire had died five years before. Ten years later came the execution of Louis XVI, and the massacres of the French Revolution were at their height. In studying the life of Benedict Joseph Labre these dates cannot be without their significance.

[ewtn]